Resident Physicians in the UK to Launch Five-Day Strike in November
Medical professionals in England are set to stage a five-day walkout next month, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Strike Details
The British Medical Association (BMA) announced that junior physicians will strike for five days in a row from November 14 at 7am to 7am on 19 November.
Resident doctors, who make up about half of all doctors in the National Health Service, are taking this action after unsuccessful talks with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
Dr Jack Fletcher stated, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with officials, pressing the health minister to resolve the scandal of unemployed physicians.”
“We know from our own survey half of second-year doctors in England are facing unemployment, their talents being unused whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and shifts in hospitals remain vacant. This is a situation which cannot go on.”
He added, “We talked with the government in good faith, hoping the minister to understand that a deal offering solutions to gradually reverse the pay reductions over several years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the next four years.”
“We hoped the government would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the interest of the community and our those we treat and would also help stop our doctors leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Junior physicians have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or as many as three years in primary care.
More details will follow soon.
